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After serving in the House for over five years, Georgia Republican Paul Broun is now running to replace retiring Sen. Saxby Chambliss in 2014. Endorsed by Ron Paul, would Broun be a shill for leadership in the upper chamber? Likely not, judging by his comments in a recent exclusive interview with TheBlaze.

“Harry Reid is an obstructionist,” Broun told TheBlaze senior contributor Mallory Factor. ”We’ve got problems in the Republican Party in the House, too.”

Broun said one of the reasons Congress has been unable to get anything done is a failure of leadership from both parties.

“Everything I’ve been doing in Washington has been geared at going back to constitutional limited government,” Broun said Monday, adding that his main focus as Senator would be to bring our nation back to the right course financially.

Through his career in Congress,

U.S. Rep. Paul Broun, R-Georgia, gestures as he finishes announcing his plans to run for the U.S. Senate. Credit: AP

Broun has received high marks from anti-tax advocates and government waste watchdogs. At TheBlaze New York City newsroom Monday, Broun told Factor that he believes we need to eliminate the Department of Education and Environmental Protection Agency, and return the federal government back to focusing on issues laid out in the Constitution.

“We’ve got too many people who look to government, who want to continue to spend more and more. The Ryan Budget itself didn’t cut spending at all. It just cuts the growth of spending,” Broun said of the budget he voted against from the former Republican candidate for Vice President. If elected to the Senate, Broun said he could see himself working well with Sens. Rand Paul, Mike Lee and Ron Johnson.

Broun serves on the House Homeland Security Committee, and discussed with Factor Monday the security concerns following the Boston Marathon bombing two weeks ago.

“Our government has failed in this case, and it’s apparent that we got to make big changes,” Broun said of the breakdown of communications with the CIA and FBI, and other contributing factors that led to the inability to stop the Tsarnaev brothers before it was too late. “Under the Constitution national security, national defense, should be the major function of the federal government. That’s where we should be spending money.”

Broun cites the communication failures that still exist post 9/11 between the investigative and national security bureaus of the federal government, as well as the degradation of the quality of U.S. Intelligence since the George H.W. Bush administration, as partially to blame for us not picking up this threat sooner. Broun told Factor that securing our borders and more boots on the ground in regions of the world where we know there are individuals who want hurt Americas, rather than chasing the weapons of law-abiding citizens or intrusive TSA procedures, will better protect the country from future attacks.

The Congressman suggests a select House committee to look into the events leading up to the Boston bombings, as well as the September 2012 attack on a U.S. consulate in Benghazi, as the only way we are ever going to get the answers on what we truly missed and how we can stop events like this from happening again.

“The American people deserve answers for both of those things, and I will not rest until we have those answers,” Broun told Factor.

Watch the full interview below with Congressman Paul Broun and TheBlaze: